The Bachelor Podcast: Women Tell All. For Love

It was good for me.

Last night was my favorite episode of each season of The Bachelor - the Women Tell All.
 
All the booted contestants gather in a room with great lighting and a boisterous studio audience and are asked to relive being dumped on national television.

It's delicious.

You can watch the entire episode on www.abc.com.

 Best line of the night: 
“I’m not calling you a liar,” Tierra said to AshLee, “I’m saying, ‘You lied to me.’”

Knox McCoy and I recap the episode in our Xtra Bacon Podcast.

Click here to listen to it (and click here to subscribe). 

What are your predictions? Who will win? Who wrote the letter to Sean? What happened to Tierra's dent? Who will be the next Bachelorette? Is Sarah the worst? 

The Post About 3 Bad Work Habits I Must Break

I'm single. I don't have kids.

I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay.

I really am okay because I sleep until 10:30am on Saturdays on a mattress filled with cash I don't spend on diapers or little league fees.

The real reason these descriptors matter is because of the impact they have on my work habits.

You see...when I meet new people they tend to ask questions in this order:
1. Are you married?
2. Do you have kids?
3. What do you do for a living?

My answers to #1 and #2 have never changed. But #3 has varied.

A: I'm a cashier at a grocery store.
A: I work at the CDC.
A. I'm a bank teller.
A: I sell handbags at a department store.
A: I plan events for churches.
A: I'm a youth minister.
A: I'm the director of marketing for a nonrprofit.

See what a liberal arts degree will get you?

What's consistent is the fact I've always wrapped myself up in my job. It describes me. It defines me. It is me.

This leads to some bad habits you may practice that I've been trying to break.

1. Working when I'm not at work.
My coworker Julie was on vacation and I sent her the above email with the subject line: "Emergency - please open" to test her. Notice she responded within 90 minutes. 

Do you check work email at 10pm? Do you answer texts from coworkers on weekends? I'm not opposed to the occasional catch-up, but failing to have boundaries between the personal and the professional is just asking for failure in one of those arenas. Unrelated: Working on that design project after hours instead of working out leads to a muffin top.

2. Working through lunch.
Powering straight through lunch may seem productive and even noble, but not taking a break simply makes dreaded tasks more overwhelming. Plus, I'm simply not an amazing employee when I have a Hot Pocket in one hand and the computer mouse in the other. Unrelated: Hot Pockets lead to a muffin top.

3. Working long hours.
I've always believed staying a couple of hours late would mean I'm more productive. The reality is and research shows, working more than 8 hours a day decreases your rate of productivity and can actually lead to a 40% increase in heart disease. Secretly, I've also felt as if my value comes from busyness. That's dumb. Ergo, I'm dumb.

What are your work habits that may need some breakage? 

The Post About Judgey Jamie and Her Hold on Me

This one time I thought I'd get you to hold me accountable to writing blog posts. So I made my intentions known.

I've committed to posting on my blog 16x in February. One down. The rest may appear on the 28th. jamiesrabbits.com/2013/02/the-po…
— Jamie Golden (@JamiesRabbits) February 1, 2013

So...you waited. And I didn't write.

@julespreever Was it 16 posts or 6? I think it was 3. I'm on it.
— Jamie Golden (@JamiesRabbits) February 11, 2013

I didn't even write three. It was only one.

When live tweeting the Oscars, I was called out.

@jamiesrabbits As a movie fan I say“Wow.Thats an accomplishment.”As a fan of your blog“So that’s what she’s been doing instead of blogging.”
— Shawn Stinson (@FromStreetRd) February 24, 2013

There was no excuse.

@fromstreetrd You’re absolutely right. #badblogger
— Jamie Golden (@JamiesRabbits) February 24, 2013

So what are the real reasons I haven't been writing?
1. Work. I like to write posts during lunch at the day job, but January and February are my busiest months. So lately, lunch has been inhaling an oatmeal creme pie while deleting all the extra spaces coworkers put after periods. Time-consuming.

2. Podcasting. I entered the mature an complex world of podcasting by recapping The Bachelor each week with my friend Knox McCoy. It takes a lot of my free time to pause the episode every 7 minutes to figure out the design of a contestant's hip tattoo or stare at Sean Lowe's bare chest.

3. Judgey Jamie. She's real. And she's abominable. She wants posts to be hilarious or moving or candidate pieces for a literary prize. Since I'm not really that type of writer, my post about how hard it is to plug things in while in the dark goes unpublished.

My friend and not-bad blogger Katherine held me accountable to write this post while we sipped coffee at Barnes & Noble. She suggested I should avoid making declarative statements about how many posts I'm going to write in a month. I should just write.

I'm really going to take her advice.

Probably.

The Post About Cake Pop Nationalism

It's National Cake Pop Day.

I hope you celebrate by eating one. Or six. Or have a doughnut. Or some goat cheese. Or whatever is not paleo.

NO PALEO.

Here's a sampling of some of my recent creations...

These pots were for a one-year-old's tea party. Most infants don't drink tea, unless you're in the South and then sweet tea and sippy cups were made for each other. This explains our teeth.

These Lego heads were for an adult man with a wife and kids. I appreciate people who do not grow up. Growing up has not had the effect on me that one might have hoped. I'm good with that.

Roll Tide! Or Go Beyoncé! Whatever your football preference.

These little earths were for a going away party with heart sprinkles in the arrival and departure destinations. Through this project I learned I'm obviously ethnocentric since the only part of the planet I can draw is the United States. And even then, I generally left off Texas.

I've learned in golf, whether mini or maxi, that the key to improving your score is to hold the scorecard.

Did you sing it in your head? Don't. It will buy some land and never leave.

May your plans this Valentine's Day make all your single friends extra irritated.

{images: Jamie}